ABSTRACT
The boundaries between social orders in late medieval and early modern Spain and the Spanish world were, as pointed out earlier, permeable. This was especially so when it came to the noble estate. Well-to-do merchants not only claimed the status of nobility, as did the 'honoured citizens' of Barcelona and the commercial elite of Burgos, but they also fully shared in the lifestyle and military ethos of the Spanish nobility. If there were more nobles in Spain, as a percentage of the general population, than anywhere else in early modern Western Europe, the same can be said for the clergy. Enjoying most of the financial, legal and social privileges that were held by the nobility, the clergy swelled to unprecedented numbers. The same provisions applied to the clergy, but with some caveats. Cervantes's ironic and deeply felt exploration of his countrymen's claims to nobility was part of a more general discourse on blood and descent.
